Thursday, July 12, 2012

Lo and behold, a finished project. Ta-dah! I've been keeping this under wraps until it was delivered for a birthday present on Tuesday to a purple-obsessed now-11-year-old.

This is another part of my master-scheme to complete some of those nefarious WIPS (works-in-progress) that have been hanging around way too long. My second daughter has been obsessed with purple for the majority of her life. At first I thought it was just the normal 4-yr-old purple fettish, which is when we first started collecting purple prints and squares and putting them in this box. I even had a bunch of star blocks with purple in them left from making a quilt for my sister's baby (7-years ago) and we added them to the box as well.

One day when she had just turned 4 I was bravely trying to bribe my way through a quilt fair with 3 small children. I let the girls each pick a fat quarter to keep them busy while I looked briefly. I was more than happy to buy this purple fairy fat quarter for the 4-yr-old because it guaranteed me a few minutes of browsing peace. We added it to the purple box and occasionally would get the fabrics out and look at them.

But somehow the purple quilt never materialized. In my defense, we moved to a new house almost 3 years ago which happened to coincide with the 4 month period of my daughter's life when she decided she was over purple and ready to move on to a new color scheme, and so we created this room and I made a fun new quilt for her bed, and felt like that was a great motherly effort accomplished.

But then the purple obsession returned and with it the guilt every time I looked at that box of purple fabric. The final straw came this spring when she was cast as the Purple Fairy in the school play, which seemed like some kind of divine intervention, and I knew that purple fairy fat quarter needed to come out of the box and get put to use.

So while she was at 6th-grade camp for a week in June, I hauled out the box and scraped together all the purple fabric I had on hand, and finally created the purple quilt.

Some other new and welcome additions include pieces from Sarah Jane's Children at Play as well as some of Doohikey Design's Dress Up Days. Those prints will always make me feel sentimental for my little girls. I also added a little bit of green, orange and pink to spice things up a little bit.

The back is pieced from the various remnants I had on hand and the quilt was quilted by my friend Monica Steelman, which saved my bacon so that the quilt was finished by the birthday. I was still binding it the day of, but it did come together just in time.

I'm happy to finally give those purple scraps a life outside the box, to cross another WIP off the eternal list, and to finally give my very purple-y girl her very purple-y quilt.

Beautiful quilt! My 4 year old is now in her Purple phase and I wonder if it actually is a phase or if she will be like your daughter and be a fan of the color for years to come! Fortunately I am working on a log cabin quilt for her bed right now and it is pink and purple! I know she would love your daughter's quilt!

You know I have horribly slow dialup so all I can do is read your post while waiting for the photos to finally come up....low and behold a beautiful NOT screaming purple quilt appeared. Perfect Purple for a 6th grader! Congrats on gettin er done!:)

i have to say that this quilt....while at first it is SO purple... as i went through the pictures the more i fell in love with it. The scrappiness and the stars and the hints of yellow and green. it is great!

LOVE the Purple still after all these years. My Mother heard somewhere that if she painted my Ceiling Lavendar, it would make me sleep more restful. So, my new bedroom they built when I was about 13 was painted Lavendar/purple. It didn't stop me from staying up way to late at night. I still do! I wish she had made me a quilt like you made for your Purple-y girl...Happy Belated B-day to her!

As soon as I read the word "purpley" I thought of Buddy! :o)Your daughter's quilt is just precious and so sweet of you to bring it all together for her. What a special blanket it will be for her, for many years to come. :o)I hope you have had a wonderful week Amy.My son loves his duct tape wallet! sending love, Trish

I have an 8-year old purple obsessed little girl that I just made a purple quilt for too! What is it w/ purple and little girls? I remember loving purple and turquoise when I was a tween. LOL Your quilt is very fun and cute!

Oh I love this! It is so whimsical! Very sweet. I am partial to purple too. I love the stars. Your own creation? Would make a great Project Linus quilt. We have lots of scraps and colors. Thanks for sharing this. K-

My 4 yr old granddaughter is bouncing back and forth each month between and pink and purple! So thats the next quilt on my list as they are moving and she will have a bedroom redo. Thanks for sharing, this is an adorable quilt.

Love it, it's just gorgeous, and I love your sweet story. I too have a nearly-11 purple-obsessed small person. Have been very slowly making a purple-and-green quilt for her, but there's no way it will be done in time for Birthday 11. Hopefully by Birthday 12 though .... I am always looking for purple prints, there are way too few of them out there (that I'm happy to buy, I should say) - so I like the idea of your ever-growing box-of-purple. Thanks for sharing. Cat.

I love your purpley quilt!! My 11 yr old daugher LOVES purple too much to my chagrin :( The Sarah Jane fabric is so perfect in this, it reminds me of my girls too- I used it in the quilt I made her for Chriastmas this year.

Catching up on summer blog reading, and this one touches my heart. My four year old is in her purple obsession, I wonder if it will last until 11? No matter, what girlie girl wouldn't love this? LOVE!!!

I need to get busy and do the same! only for a very special 9 nine year old grand-daughter. On her last visit we ordered online some purple fabric. I am still ordering, cant wait to do it! Yours is very pretty.

I need to get busy and do the same! only for a very special 9 nine year old grand-daughter. On her last visit we ordered online some purple fabric. I am still ordering, cant wait to do it! Yours is very pretty.

It's a very simple pattern. The large squares are 8" finished and the four-patch blocks are made up of 4" squares. The 8" stars come from a pattern from The Buggy Barn. I had them left over from another project so I included them here. Hope that helps!

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